People powered wins for wild salmon

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Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00

Written by editor

A,

Huge news! We have not one but THREE incredible wins for wild salmon to tell you about, A! And you helped make them all possible!

1. Victory! Changes to the Fisheries Act!

Last week, Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced a new and improved Fisheries Act. The amendments came in part in response to you, A. Here’s what we can expect: environmental protections gutted by Harper’s government in 2012 will be reinstated, and will include new commitments to involve Indigenous peoples and knowledge systems in decision making. These changes will go a long way in protecting our wild salmon populations.

2. Major progress on salmon blood!

BC’s Environment Minister, George Heyman, announced a full review of processing plants that are spewing untreated, farmed salmon blood into wild salmon migratory routes. This happened after... disgusting footage, shot by Travis Campbell, was released showing parasite and virus-filled farmed salmon blood being pumped out of salmon processing plants off Vancouver Island. In response, over 26,000 of you signed a petition to amend the Fisheries Act and ban the dumping of blood water. Thousands more of you emailed Ministers and MLAs to take action.

3. Success! BC will have a full review of sea-lice treatments!

And finally, BC’s Environment Minister, George Heyman, also announced a full review of sea-lice treatments for farmed salmon!

Indigenous and non-Indigenous activists have been working tirelessly for years to protect wild salmon. And when SumOfUs teamed up with Clayoquot Action to stop a massive dump of pesticides in the ocean to treat sea-lice infestations in farmed salmon, a whopping 34,000 caring members like you answered the call.

These massive steps forward happened because of people power, and people like you A. Minister LeBlanc and Minister Heyman both heard us and made some important changes -- and we can be really proud of that.

But our work isn’t over.

The new changes don’t address the important issue of open-ocean fish farms. Many First Nations are opposed to these farms and they should get to decide if they want these projects in their territories. On top of that, the farms, and their processing plants, pose significant threats to wild salmon populations and must be phased out in order to our protect wild salmon.

While there is still work to be done, we can celebrate these big steps forward in the fight towards ensuring the prosperity of wild salmon populations on our coast. These wins are an amazing testament to the strength and effectiveness of people power.

We’ll be in touch soon with next steps on this campaign, but for now, we just wanted to say thank you for all you’ve done and do.

Emma, Amelia, Angus and the rest of the SumOfUs team

P.S. Can you chip in to keep our work going to protect wild salmon? Chip in now.

More information:

New Fisheries Act Reverses Harper-era ‘Gutting’ DeSmog, 6 February 2018
4 things to watch for in Canada's new Fisheries Act CBC, 6 February 2018

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